Dirk Fock

Dirk Fock, who later often used the professional name Dirk Foch, was born on 18 June 1886 in Batavia (at that time part of the Dutch East Indies, today Jakarta in Indonesia), the son of Dutch parents. He spent the first twelve years of his life in the colonial environment of Java before his family returned to the Netherlands in 1898. There, Dirk Fock took his first practical steps in music, learning the violin and beginning to compose at a young age.
For his formal education, he first studied in the Netherlands and subsequently continued his training in Berlin. He received conducting instruction from Karl Muck and Artur Nikisch and studied violin with Anton Witek. His years in Berlin proved decisive: Nikisch opened opportunities for him to perform with the Berliner Philharmoniker, while Witek secured him a position among the first violins.
His career soon shifted increasingly toward conducting. In 1911, he became principal conductor at the Kurfürsten Opera in Berlin, followed in 1912 by an appointment at the opera in Mülhausen. Between 1913 and 1915, he directed the Orchestra Association in Gothenburg and subsequently worked in Stockholm. From 1917 to 1919, he appeared regularly as a guest conductor with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam and the Residentie Orchestra in The Hague.
In 1919, Dirk Fock continued his career in New York, where he conducted orchestras at the Stadium concerts and in Carnegie Hall. In 1922, he co-founded and became the first conductor of the American Orchestral Society, an institution intended to provide advanced orchestral experience for young musicians and conductors. During the same period, he served as principal conductor of the New York City Symphony Orchestra while making guest appearances with major American orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic.
At the invitation of Richard Strauss, Dirk Fock returned to Europe in 1924 and settled in Vienna, where he became principal conductor of the Wiener Konzertverein. From the 1930s onward, Fock spent long periods in Paris, where he occasionally conducted the Orchestre National but increasingly devoted himself to composition. In 1940, he emigrated once more to the United States and later became an American citizen. After retiring from active musical life in 1948, he settled in 1959 with his wife, Christine Suze Moltzer, in Orselina in the Swiss canton of Ticino.
Although widely known as a conductor, Dirk Fock left behind a distinctive and varied body of compositions. His catalogue includes song collections, works for voice and orchestra, piano music, chamber works for violin and piano, incidental music, and stage works.
Dirk Fock died on 24 May 1973 in Orselina (Switzerland).

In my possession is the autograph manuscript of the "Ballade melancolique" for piano by Dirk Fock. The manuscript was found in the estate of pianist Elly Ney and is signed as "Dirk Foch". The composition is different to the three ballads op.3 and a previously unknown composition by Dirk Fock.